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Unlike rival Weibo – the “Chinese Twitter” – which has seen a decline in users after censorship issues in the past years, WeChat is a private social media platform that allows users to interact and share with only their “contacts”.

This has allowed the platform to create a much more personalized experience with comprehensive features that include a timeline-like feature called Moments, voice and group chats, as well as Official Accounts that serve as content distribution platforms for celebrities, brands, and news media.

With this ubiquity of WeChat in China, Chinese immigrants and international students are able to continue their use of the mobile app when they arrive in Canada to keep in touch with family and friends back on the Mainland – a free multimedia messaging and voice calling alternative to costly international phone bills and mass email. As a bonus, the app is filled with opportunities for content discovery, and allows sharing content within WeChat but also from external apps and websites.

Marketing on a social platform, especially one as “private” as WeChat, will not be effective with just a translated banner ad.

It requires knowing where local users are consuming their content, establishing a partnership with these channels, and adapting the key message to speak to each user demographic in their own language – hint: if you’re writing copy in Traditional, you’re on the wrong track.

A campaign that considers technical details like how to adapt content to best fit the devices WeChat runs on, as well as how to track user engagement using custom URLs and QR codes – the WeChat app is optimized for QR codes – can enrich the user experience and help the brand create a lasting “impression”.

Since WeChat’s rise over the past year and a half, Focus, as a leader in the field, has worked with multiple WeChat partners with over tens of thousands of followers each in Toronto and Vancouver to tailor branded content for their readership.

We focus on making your message culturally resonant and then distributing it to the right audience.

Is your brand ready to join in the conversation?

Let’s sit down for a chat on how you can leverage this essential social media platform to speak to the ever-growing Chinese population in Canada.